We Learn, Live and Love
by Happy Psycho
Summary: Draco Malfoy meets Nyssa Aurelia and becomes a better person. Humour, Romance, Drama. Pre- to post- war.
1. Escape From France

A girl walked with a sure gait past the classrooms in the direction of the Great Hall. Her robes, marked by the Gryffindor crest, hid a mahogany wand of dragon heartstring. She turned right, checked that no one was in sight, and whipped her wand out. She unlocked the broom closet door, stepped in to pick a broom, and left through the window.

Nyssa Aurelia was a fifth year student at Hogwarts. She came from Beauxbatons two years ago after her Muggle-born mother died of lung cancer to start a fresh life. Moving from France to England actually helped her more than she had expected. For one, she could never really fit in, because she was born in London and was brought up under a different culture. She never really understood the grace and passiveness of the Beauxbaton girls, so she never really managed to create strong ties with them. Hogwarts, however, had been more accommodating. Nyssa quickly found good friends in her House and classes, and she was on friendly terms with most of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, though she seldom talked to the Hufflepuffs. The Slytherins were just difficult and some were arrogant. No doubt, this Malfoy boy was the worst of the lot, usually travelling with two overweight cronies or a whole gang of discriminatory Slytherins. Hogwarts probably had one of the highest rates of blood discrimination. Nevertheless, she was grateful to be back in her birthplace.

She mounted her broom and shot into the sky, flying around the school grounds. She had a two-hour break and wanted some alone time because one of her closest friends, Hermione, was having a loud argument with Ron over the relevance of house-elves in the future magical world (Harry wasn't around because he had to go for Potions remedial).

Nyssa landed on one of the less-angled rooftops and sat down, gazing at the cold lake nine floors below. Her mind wandered from Arithmancy to Herbology, to Neville Longbottom, and finally to Draco Malfoy, where her foot gave an involuntary kick at the thought of his permanent smirk and perfect hair. Then she realised she'd kicked the broomstick off its sitting place and it was rolling towards the edge of the roof.

_No, no, no!_

She rose to her feet tried to chase it.

"Drat," Nyssa cursed quietly as she watched the broom drop.

* * *

Draco Malfoy was making a wide turn on his Nimbus during Quidditch practice when movement to the right caught his eye. It looked like something brown falling off one of the castle roofs. As he flew closer for inspection, he saw Nyssa standing at the edge of the roof watching the broom as it hit the ground.

_Ha! She's stranded on the roof._

To his surprise, she pulled out her wand and pointed it sharply at the broom. Draco could see her mouthing the words, "Accio, broom!" As the broom zoomed up towards her, she leapt off the rooftop edge, let herself freefall for about four storeys before she landed squarely on the broomstick and flew away. Draco nearly gaped and decided to follow her from a distance. Quidditch practice was boring him anyway.

She flew past the west bridge and took a sharp corner around the Hufflepuff common room tower, careful not to fly past directly in front of any windows, then headed for the Hogwarts Lake while Draco hovered at the edge of the Forbidden Forest where he figured he'd be well-camouflaged by his green Quidditch uniform. It was a great distance away but it wasn't very far for him to see her; he had exceptional eyesight. He watched her skim lazily along the lake, peering at her reflection in the water surface. She let her hand touch the water, breaking its calm surface and sending little ripples in every direction. Suddenly, two giant tentacles shot up from the water in front of her. She looked up in surprise and spiralled upwards around the tentacles, rubbing them as they waved about in the air. Water from the tentacles was dripping off and onto her but she didn't seem to mind. When she reached the end of one of the tentacles, she dismounted her broom with an insane smile on her face and balanced on its tip.

_What the - ?_

When the Giant Squid decided it had had enough company, it slowly retracted its tentacles while Nyssa quickly mounted her broom and kicked off, speeding back towards the castle. Draco returned to the Pitch to practice, his mind half-occupied with Nyssa, the roof and the squid, and narrowly missed a Bludger to the broom handle.

* * *

"You smell like squid," Blaise sneered across the table at Nyssa in Potions class. Gryffindors and Slytherins usually had Potions together. Everybody knew Snape enjoyed having two extremes in his classes: The intelligent (Slytherins) and the maladapted (Gryffindors).

Nyssa 'accidentally' knocked over a bowl of ingredients into Blaise's lap as she reached for the cutting knife.

"Oh, really?" She mused.

"Ten points from Gryffindor!"

A series of grumbles erupted across the Potions room and several pairs of eyes rolled at the black-caped back of Professor Snape. Everyone knew that if Snape took points from Gryffindor, it was usually because of injustice, Harry Potter, or both. In this case, it was injustice. Nyssa started slicing her yellow algae.

"Well Blaise, I suppose that's what Mudbloods smell like when you come into lethal range of them," Draco drawled on autopilot from the adjacent table and Blaise shifted his seat a few inches away from her. With Nyssa, you had to have strength in numbers because she'd retort every personal insult she could. The more Slytherins there are, the faster she'd get tired and give up.

It wasn't Nyssa's choice to sit with Blaise in Potions - she was late because Peeves the poltergeist had been throwing banana peels at a group of first years and she felt morally compelled to right things; by the time she came in, every other table was full.

"Don't use that term with me," Nyssa frowned at the algae, her slicing pace slightly faster. She scanned the room for Harry, Ron and Hermione, and found them behind, one table to the right. Ron was already watching her table like a hawk. Hermione was busy stirring Harry's potion the right way while he looked blankly into the cauldron.

"Aurelia, Mudbloods don't tell me what to do," Draco stated, "hey, isn't Aurelia a first name? Nyssa Aurelia. Like Apple Pear." Two tables of Slytherins burst into sniggers, except for Pansy Parkinson, whose laughter could pass for a high-pitched hyena.

"Bother someone else, Malfoy," Nyssa's slicing speed had increased to violent chopping.

Draco gave Crabbe and Goyle the usual signal – to advance on Gryffindors, weaker people and random targets for the purpose of making them feel small. They shuffled to Nyssa and towered menacingly over her.

"Lay off," she growled.

"Yeah, lay off," echoed Ron. He had walked to Nyssa's table and stood behind her, facing the four Slytherins: Malfoy, Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle. The six of them stood upright for some time, glaring at each other venomously.

"Fif-ty points from Gryf-fin-dor," everybody looked up at Snape, who had appeared behind Ron, "Miss Aurelia, your algae looks like pulp. If you have the cognitive ability to read, you would know that it is supposed to be finely sliced."

When Snape stalked away to another table, Nyssa sent a pleading look towards Hermoine, who was happy to give her the leftover sliced algae, since she had already brewed and bottled her potion.

"What are we making again?" Nyssa asked.

"Confusing Concoction," Hermione replied.

"Ah."


	2. Confusing Concoction

Over the few months at Hogwarts, Nyssa had grown a fondness for the rooftops. There was something attractive about the inherent danger of isolation. If her broom and wand should roll off the roof, she'd be forced to flag down a Quidditch player or starve to death.

She dismounted the broom on a roof and sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. She could see the Quidditch Pitch on her right, the Forest to the front, and Lake on her left. She missed Quidditch dearly. She knew she was a good Quidditch player who could play any position on the team. In Beauxbatons, she was promoted at Second Year to Seeker after the original Seeker, Claire Girard, left the academy (the rumour was that her father pulled her out to train her as an Auror after news of the Dark Lord spread). How often was that? Second Years rarely made Seeker positions, and when they did, it was because they displayed extraordinary skill and potential.

Beauxbatons only had one Quidditch school team, and would play with Durmstrang and Hogwarts team championship winners. Nyssa blushed at the memory of playing against Viktor Krum in Third Year as Beauxbatons Seeker. She'd felt so clumsy on her broom and kept grinning at him like a debauchee. After she caught the Snitch and her team won, he didn't seem so interesting to her anymore and her attention drifted elsewhere. It was from then on that she'd heard agents from the France National Quidditch Team attended all the matches and practices she was in, despite her English origin.

The Quidditch Pitch was empty this evening. She recalled the time when Beauxbatons used a Golden Snidget for a Snitch. It was a bird bewitched to flit within the playing grounds and it produced better Seekers because the Seekers had to be deft enough to snatch it without killing it. Only Beauxbatons Seekers were allowed by the Ministry to handle Golden Snidgets because it was a requirement for them to have dainty fingers. Seekers would know the Snidget was still healthy if it pecked and scratched at their hands after capture. One day while her team was using it during practice, the enchantment wore off; it glared at her with its beady red eyes, flew away and never came back. The official permit for usership of Golden Snidgets was never renewed as Beauxbatons Academy decided to progress to using the Golden Snitch.

_You know you miss the sport. Why won't you join the team?_

The Golden Snitch was too mechanical. It destroyed the elegance of the game.

_That isn't the real reason._

She couldn't answer that easily, but understood somewhere that it was because of her mother's passing. A loss in the family needed to take something away from her. She wasn't lacking anywhere else, since she wasn't socially withdrawn, or feeble with tears pouring out of her eyes. In fact, the last time she had shed a tear was during her first week at Hogwarts, and that was because Crabbe, or Goyle (she always mixed up their names), had accidentally stepped on her foot and brought her to the point of unbearable physical agony. That ended with Ron throwing a punch at Crabbe (or Goyle), who punched back, and a fifty-point loss to both Houses from McGonagall. It was actually how they became friends. Quidditch had to go, so the loss of her mother could be countered. Nyssa had an epiphany: Hermione must have had enough intuition to realise this and told Ron and Harry, because none of them had ever pushed her into trying out for the Gryffindor team, even though they knew she was better than most with a broom. No one could blame the three friends for being so close.

Nyssa sighed and examined the broom she'd discreetly borrowed from the school closet. It was a Comet 20, an old model released over a hundred years ago. She was amazed it could still fly. She pointed her wand at its bristles, which were sticking out in odd directions.

"Repairo."

The bristles wove back into their original positions tightly. Those that had been snapped off or fallen out in its many years of flight grew again. The old Comet would fly faster now. Nyssa never owned her own broom before. She would constantly remind herself that there'd always be something better to spend those Galleons on than a silly little broom that would get outdated as newer models were released. Nyssa squinted at the dark sky and saw a bird gliding towards her in the cold wind.

* * *

"_Malfoy_."

Draco looked up from his Defence Against the Dark Arts essay, just in time to dodge a slap from Pansy Parkinson.

"You _filthy wretch!_" She screeched.

Pansy tried to hit him again so he caught her hand mid-air. He was sure he hadn't done anything to upset her. Besides, Pansy was generally very emotionally unstable.

Draco stood up from his four-poster bed. "Kindly vacate the boys' dormitory."

"_India and China are surpassing Europe because of you and Blaise! Where the Bloody Hell is Blaise?"_

She was using her other hand to loosen Draco's firm grip on her. Draco sniffed her for alcohol, but smelled yellow algae instead. That was an ingredient for Confusing Concoction. He looked at her eyes. They were slightly glassy. He was right; someone had probably spiked one of her drinks with potion. It was strange, because he faintly remembered Nyssa lurking around the Slytherin table the other day... That was about the right onset for Confusing Concoction.

Zabini stepped into the room.

"Blaise, she wants a word with you," Draco turned her to face Blaise and pushed her towards him. He finished the last sentence of his essay and left for Potions, turning a deaf ear to the loud one-sided commotion in his dormitory. Blaise and Pansy would be late for class.

He sauntered out of the common room and a group of Slytherins fell into step behind him. Unbeknownst to most non-Slytherins, there was a hierarchy involved. Since his family name carried the most prestige in Slytherin, wherever he walked, his Housemates walked behind.

He saw Granger talking to another Gryffindor and avoided her like the plague. He knew he was like a child; he did it because authority taught him to. He disgusted himself; it was easier not to let his father down. Every time it came to this, he would rid the issue from his mind by sneering at people. He did it so much that he had perfected it. As he rounded the corner, he nearly bumped into a Hufflepuff girl with frizzy long hair called Amora Williams.

"Hello, Amora," he sneered. The group of Slytherins behind him roared with laughter. They knew it was spoonerism on the spell 'Alo-homora', where you swapped the beginning letters of two words.

She made a frightened whimper and ducked away. Draco had a family reputation to uphold, and he wasn't ready to disappoint his family.

* * *

Bandura, Nyssa's Great Grey owl, dropped an envelope into Nyssa's lap and landed next to her, its large wings flapping the cold wind into her face. The owl's name was Bandura at the moment, but Nyssa would rename it whenever it suited her fancy. She tried to rip the envelope open but the paper wouldn't tear.

She tapped her wand on the seal and said, "Nyssa Aurelia."

The flap opened by itself and she quickly pulled the letter out:

_My Dearest Nyssa,_

_I don't know how long this package will take to reach you, but it is the only way of safe correspondence. Enclosed is a ring that has been passed down the family line. It is now yours. I urge that you wear it immediately, and under no circumstance remove it. I regret leaving you in such confusion, and will explain everything to you in person when we next meet._

_Love, Alistair, your father._

She turned the envelope over and a large ring fell out. It had an insignia of no particular significance; just three horizontal rectangles, one above the other, like an 'equal by definition' sign. Nyssa reckoned it was a family crest, which had been forgotten as the years passed. Since family name held an exponentially greater value in medieval times than in the modern wizarding world, it made sense that her ancestors had abandoned the crest in response to an increasingly merit-based society. She slipped the ring on, and the metal band around her finger shrank until it fit her snugly.

Bandura nibbled at her fingers. He'd been waiting patiently for a reward for the past one minute.

"Sorry, Freud," Nyssa said meekly, "I don't have food on me right now."

Freud flapped his large, feathery wings and flew off in a grump. Nyssa pocketed the letter and headed back to the common room. She was going to tell Harry, Ron and Hermione about the ring. They loved conspiracy theories.

**A/N**: I've been trying to update this since last week, but FF kept giving me the type 2 error. Sorry for the delay.

Also, only Nyssa is mine, everyone else is JKR's. Ta.


	3. Imagination in Divination

Draco sat in the middle of the Great Hall eating his Amish ham. Almost everyone was down for breakfast. He stared at Harry, who was a table away staring back at him. It was their daily thing. Draco did it to unnerve the boy and Harry did it because he refused to be unnerved. Ron was piling his plate with bagels and scrambled eggs, while the Weasley girl Ginny sat opposite him unwrapping a small package which had just been brought in by what Draco thought was a ridiculously tiny owl. It flew fast circles around their heads, occasionally emitting soft hoots until Ron grabbed it from the air, hand-fed it with biscuit, and threw it as high as he could, where it flew out the window. He saw Nyssa and that bushy-haired thing enter the Hall and walk down the Gryffindor table until they found their friends. Hermione took a seat beside Ginny, and her fat orange cat leapt from the table into her lap. Nyssa sat beside Ron and Harry. Since the day Draco saw her doing whatever she was doing with the Squid, he never looked at Nyssa the same again. The fact that she _did_ smell like squid in the Potions dungeon should have disgusted him so badly until it made him run out of class to take a shower, but it didn't. He watched her feeling around the table for morning coffee. She looked tired and her eyes were still half-closed from sleep.

_Stop staring. _

He looked down at his ham, silver cutlery in his hands. He was a _Malfoy,_ for Merlin's _sake_; he had more important things to do. He looked at Nyssa again. She stirred the cup, breathed in the aroma and took a long sip while laying the Daily Prophet open on the table, the morning sunlight bouncing off her soft features.

_Maybe she's not so bad..._

He looked down at his food again and tried to concentrate on eating, but found himself glancing at Nyssa again. She looked more awake now. Her eyes were amber. He swallowed.

_Stop letching!_

Draco scowled inwardly and resumed with breakfast. Then he remembered he'd unintentionally abandoned the staring ritual with Harry, and looked at him hard. Harry was looking at Nyssa, then at him, then at Nyssa, and then at him again. Then a stupid grin started spreading across his face. Draco sent a cold glare at Harry, put the last piece of ham in his mouth and turned his attention to Pansy, who'd been prattling about Merlin-knows-what into his ear the whole time.

* * *

The library was quiet, so Nyssa stepped silently up to Harry from behind. He was slouched in a chair and seemed thoroughly engrossed in the book he was reading. She peered over his head and looked at the title that was printed at the top of the left page. It read: _The Joys and Perils of Childbirth_.

"Hiya, Harry," she whispered.

He slammed the book shut and sat on it.

"Where's Hermione?" He whispered back with wide, shifty eyes.

"I don't know, Ancient Runes section, maybe," Nyssa was smiling because she was trying not to laugh. "We have to leave for Trelawney's class now."

"'Kay." His eyes were still wide and shifty.

She walked out of the library first to Ron, who was waiting outside talking to Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, giving Harry the time to hide the book and let Hermione know they were leaving for Divination. Hermione had Harry's Invisibility Cloak and was going to stay until after hours to scour the Restricted Section for anything on Nyssa's ring. When Harry came out, they headed to the Divination Tower. Hermione had dropped Divination, and Nyssa had seriously been considering dropping it as well. It was a subjective course, even almost pseudo-magical in nature, and Nyssa wasn't sure she wanted to take the Divination O.W.L. at the end of the year. She didn't take Divination seriously, and dropping it would allow her more time to spend on her other subjects, or stare at the Quidditch Pitch all day, or secretly fantasize about what lay under Malfoy's shirt. As an ex-Quidditch player, she still had faint abs, and if _she_ had abs, then he _must_ have abs. He was such a childish arse; but his bone structure was strong enough to make up for it and truthfully, he was the prettiest object to look at out of every Quidditch player in Hogwarts.

It was nearly eight at night, and Nyssa was rather exhausted. She'd had Arithmancy with Ravenclaws this morning, Charms and Advanced Charms in the afternoon, and Potions with Slytherins in the evening. The Ravenclaws were too apt at Arithmancy for her comfort level and the Slytherins were being a disrespectful bunch, as always. She noticed Malfoy giving Harry a harder time than usual and presumed it was to badger him before the Quidditch match the following day.

"As you may already know, you have a mid-term assessment in two months on the ancient art of reading tea leaves," droned Professor Trelawney," hence it is only fit that from today till the assessment date, you will be working individually on your Tessomancy skills."

Nyssa sighed, grabbed the nearest tea cup and began grinding tea leaves. Trelawney was making her way slowly around the class, stopping to check on a few tables as she went. Once Ron stopped rolling his eyes, he looked into his cup and snorted. Harry stared into his cup and blinked occasionally. He was probably thinking about Ginny. Nyssa stopped grinding and looked into the cup. She could make out the shape of two balls.

_Balls? Oo-er..._

She continued grinding, and then checked her tea leaves again. Now it just looked like another dirty image. She grinned. She shook her cup and scrutinized the leaves again.

_Dirty pictures! Dirty pictures! _

"Miss Aurelia, I sense a burst of excitement in you!" Trelawney approached her table. "Please, tell us what you see."

"Uh... I don't know..."

"Mr Weasley! Read Miss Aurelia's teacup," Trelawney smiled eagerly.

Ron glanced into the cup and gave an almost immediate non-committal shrug and uttered something like, '_Neh_'. The professor took the cup slowly, looked into it, gasped and let it slip from her fingers. It shattered over the old, partially decayed wooden floor, and everyone's attention snapped to their table. Harry was visibly refraining himself from rolling his eyes because astonishing revelations from Trelawney happened every. Everyone looked at her with mild interest. Her expression remained awestruck.

"You have... _The sign of love_! But it is not full moon yet! It is barely into the first week of the lunar cycle! But the sign is _strong_! Love is looking for you, Miss Aurelia! You are _very_ blessed, _very_ blessed indeed!"

_Maybe that's what the dirty pictures were trying to tell me._

The entire class erupted into skeptical laughter, except for Parvati, who looked slightly envious. Half an hour later at nine, the students were dismissed, and everyone headed down the steps towards their dormitories.

* * *

It was six minutes before the first Quidditch match of the year would commence. The spectator stands were dressed in Gryffindor and Slytherin colours, crowds were cheering for both Houses and enchanted confetti fell from the clouds but vanished before they could touch the grass. Nyssa was sitting at the bench on ground level with Hermione, ready to run out with Hermione onto the field in case Harry and Ron got knocked off their brooms. The plan was that Hermione would heal them and Nyssa would provide the necessary moral support. Nyssa was taking in the atmosphere when she noticed a sleek black object at the end of the bench. It was a Nimbus 2001.

_Is that? Is that really a Nimbus 2001? By Golly, that godly thing was built for sturdiness and agility! Merlin, it's even faster than a Nimbus 2000! Oh Voldemort, it's so top-of-the-range that it's so blindingly beautiful! I must touch it! I must!_

She reached out and wrapped her slender fingers around its polished handle.

"What are you doing?" A smooth voice drawled from above.

Nyssa's hand froze on the broom handle and she looked up. Malfoy was looking down his sharp nose at her. It was his broomstick.

"Touching it."

_Oo-er._

"Why?"

_Say something smart!_

"Because I want to."

_Oo-er._

"Why?"

"Because I like touching it."

_Oo-er!_

Draco picked the broom up and pried her fingers off the handle (they wouldn't budge at first). He turned on his heel and gracefully walked out into the pitch where Madam Hooch and the teams were, leaving a very red-faced Nyssa on the bench.

The Quaffle was thrown into the air and the match began. Draco slammed a Gryffindor Chaser out of the way and headed for higher altitude to search for the Snitch.

_Yeah, she's not so bad._

* * *

**A/N: **Alrigh' it's time I mention that this will definitely stray from the last book (because I haven't read it yet (although I've watched HP6))_._

Hope the story's still enjoyable for you. Do R&R_!_

_Edit: OMG DRACO MALFOY IS TRENDING ON TWITTER RIGHT NOW!  
_


	4. Strange Scripture

Draco was on his broom watching the match and looking for the Snitch when he noticed Harry tailing him. He flew faster but Harry easily caught up with his Firebolt.

"Hey!"

Draco ignored him.

"Hey, Malfoy!"

"Get your own Snitch." He snapped.

Draco flew in erratic directions, winding through the spectator stands, trying to shake Harry off. He heard the '_thwack_' of a Beater's club hitting a Bludger. When he looked behind, he saw Harry and the Bludger following closely.

"Stop following me, Potter." Draco snarled.

"I want to talk," Harry yelled over the noise of the pitch and pulled up beside him. Harry was in his face now, and it was annoying. Draco would have loved to kick him off his flashy Firebolt but saw no legitimate way out. Harry also had the fastest broom in the school and Draco had nowhere to escape as he was confined to the Quidditch Pitch.

"Fine. Draco flew upwards until the clouds were so thick that he couldn't see the pitch. A moment later, he was joined by Harry and the Bludger. Draco caught and restrained the Bludger before it could hit him. He couldn't function in society with bruised skin.

"Do you like her?" Harry had that stupid grin on his face again.

"Who."

"You know who."

"Is _this_ what you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes!" Harry's grin grew wider.

Draco kept silent for two seconds with a large scowl on his face, decided the conversation was over and began his descent through the clouds to the other Quidditch players.

"Don't worry, I won't tell!" Harry yelled downwards. A Bludger came flying at him from below.

Draco slammed another Gryffindor Chaser out of the way and continued searching for the Snitch. Harry remained in the clouds for awhile, grinning to himself and fending off the Bludger. That silence alone was enough to tell him that young Malfoy actually had _feelings_.

* * *

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Nyssa were in the common room talking about the ring. It was past one in the morning and everyone else had gone up to their beds after a long night of overblown celebrations led by Fred and George Weasley. They'd casted the usual silencing charm on the room before they let off miniature, harmless, heatless fireworks that smelled like fruit and spelled Ron's name in the air. Gryffindor had lost the Snitch to Slytherin, but had won the match due to penalty and Quaffle scores, and Ron's amazing Keeper skills. Harry would have caught the Snitch if Draco hadn't appeared so suddenly and kneed his side. It was ticklish and before Harry could recover from his reflex, Draco had snatched the Snitch, furious that his team had still lost.

"So, I was browsing through every book in the Restricted Section, and the only thing I could find was this," Hermione said in an excited whisper while pulling out a neatly folded piece of parchment from her robes. She had scribbled something down from an old first edition book of ancient symbols and scriptures. She unfolded it and read it aloud:

_The insignia of three parallel lines signifies a trinity of unsaid individuals, that when these individuals are united, an immeasurable power will be granted upon the wearer._

"What?" Ron whispered, still in his Quidditch uniform.

"Is that all?" Nyssa asked, cradling the Firebolt.

"I'm afraid so," Hermione frowned, "it sounds like that ring bears some kind of magical quality. I just wish I had more information."

"It also sounds like there are three people who need to reunite or something," Ron added.

"Or maybe it's a rip-off from the real ring. It could be anything, really. The book could even be wrong," Nyssa said.

"But I still think it's magical! Its band even shrank around your finger," Ron protested in a loud whisper, "normal rings don't do that."

Hermione nodded.

"What's the ring called?" Harry asked.

"Doesn't say," Hermione frowned again.

"You should keep it safe for now," Harry told Nyssa, "is it Disillusioned?"

"Yes, of course!" Hermione answered before Nyssa could, "how else do you think she's been walking around the castle without anyone noticing that masculine-looking ring around her finger?"

"How come all of us can still see it?" Ron asked.

Hermione gave Ron a very long look.

"Because I made you three the exceptions," Nyssa replied.

"You can _do_ that?" He gaped.

"Yes, Ron, she's formidable at Advanced Charms." Harry grinned and wiped his glasses.

"Ah well, never knew."

The other three kept silent for awhile.

"So, Harry..." Nyssa started.

Harry already knew what was coming.

"May I borrow your broom?" She whined, "You know, since it's already out of the closet?"

"Go ahead."

"You know, just to give it a little workout, make sure it doesn't rust. I mean, I'm sure brooms rust some day, don't they? And the Firebolt's been suffocated in that tiny, dusty, horrible, _horrible_ closet! The poor broom! It's – "

"_Take it_, Nyssa!"

"_Okay!_"

Harry knew Nyssa wouldn't actually take it out for flight, even if he forced her to. She knew it was too dear to risk any damage to the broom. It wasn't just the cost, but also an irreplaceable gift from his godfather. It was a bond between him and his only family. Since she had an incurable obsession with Quidditch and brooms, he'd consented. The most she would do is privately admire the Firebolt in her dormitory.

"Hermione, I'll need the Cloak back. For Hogsmeade this weekend," Harry said.

Hermione's eyes brightened. "Oh! Right! Here Harry," she rummaged through her bag and brought it out.

The four sat silent for awhile. Hermione and Ron kept exchanging glances. Then they said their goodnights and headed upstairs to their dormitories.

* * *

Nyssa didn't go to bed immediately. She waited for Hermione to fall asleep and slipped out the snoring portrait in the wall with Harry's Firebolt. It was imperative that she get some polish from the broom closet to clean Harry's broom because she couldn't wait seven hours for the morning to arrive.

She snuck past Peeves, who, thankfully, was sound asleep, and reached the broom closet. After breaking in, she shut the closet door behind her and switched the light on. She found the polish in the only cupboard there was in the room, and began polishing the Firebolt absent-mindedly.

The letter was on her mind. It sounded too impersonal, and it was far too short. Her father would usually ask about school and whether the professors were abusive. Then he'd enter a full-blown rant about work ethics being too strict in St. Mungo's, that his clinical trials on patients in the Head-Healing department could never reach their full potential.

She assumed the ring must have _some_ worth in it for him to have sent it over so suddenly. Maybe it was a contraband item and the Ministry was going through his office so he needed to send it somewhere. She knew that wasn't right; he didn't keep illegal things, apart from that one time he let an illegal immigrant from Turkey stay in the house for awhile. Then it got out of hand because they discovered later that the wizard had been smuggling Manticore eggs, because they found about a dozen of them in their basement. That was bad. It was very illegal. Thankfully, he was able to find the wizard another place to stay before the Ministry could find out.

Her father was a Squib, and so was his father, and his father, despite marrying witches of pure and half blood. That was as far as she'd bothered to ask. He lived a normal life and worked as a Head-Healer in St Mungo's. He'd talk to patients who had mental problems, and prescribe potions depending on their cases. It was a fairly normal job, so the ring couldn't be _that _valuable.

It might even be an elaborate experimental plan. She knew her father loved mind tricks. He was among the first few wizards to marry Muggle Psychology into Head-Healing in the wizarding world. It was a decent shift in Healer history, since Muggles and wizards behaved similarly. When she was a child, he filled her head about the theories of Psychology; that some Muggle researchers in the past had even experimented on their own children. 'Anything is possible,' her father used to tell her when her eyes widened in disbelief at the controversial experiments they conducted. It wouldn't be surprising if the ring was part of a test to see how she'd react to unfamiliar circumstances.

She would just have to wait for an explanation at the end of the school term, which was during Christmas break. That was her favourite time of the year, because it meant going home to visit her father, the last living family member she knew, and then going to stay at the Weasleys and play Quidditch Unlimited with Fred, George, Harry, Ron and Ginny. Quidditch Unlimited was Quidditch without rules and with garden Gnomes transfigured into a Quaffle, Snitch and Bludgers. They'd always try to get Hermione to join in but since she was terrified of fast brooms and flying Gnomes, she'd usually end up sitting below the game, fully immersed in a stack of books. Last year, Nyssa had brought her father's clinical trial records as reading material for Hermione. She'd been horrified at his work, but Nyssa had assured her that new potions always seemed sketchy the first time they were opened to volunteers, although she wasn't sure how convinced Hermione was.

She was finally done with the Firebolt. She locked the broom cupboard and crept her way back to the common room.

"Oh, it's _you_ again," yawned the Fat Lady, one eye open, the other eye half-closed.

"Spellotape," Nyssa said.

"Shouldn't you already be in the common room?" The portrait yawned again.

"Excellent observation, and that is why I'm trying to get in," Nyssa replied.

"What's the password then?"

"_Spellotape!_" Nyssa whispered, "_I said that five seconds ago!_"

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't."

"I did. You were half asleep. Spellotape. There, I said it again."

The portrait swung open and Nyssa hopped in.


	5. Unfortunate Tidings

Draco's attention fell on Nyssa again. She was walking to her breakfast, partially asleep; she always was. He watched her sit with Scarface and summon the pot of coffee straight out of Finnigan's hand from five metres away. She managed to pour herself half a cup before he smugly summoned it back. After throwing him a dirty look, she summoned Weasel's Daily Prophet, which lay on the table, all but two feet away. It made Draco chuckle a bit. He used to do that in the Manor before his father reprimanded him about _table_ _manners_ and _hands_.

After scanning the front page, Nyssa flipped the Prophet open. Then she was staring too long at the newspaper with her mouth slightly ajar. Draco couldn't see her eyes but her brows were furrowed, and soon he saw a tear drip into her lap. Something was wrong today. Harry and Redhead girl had been talking to her but they started to notice it too. Their smiles disappeared. Then everyone was looking at her and the page she was at. They looked... _Concerned_. Was that what he was feeling too?

Harry reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn't seem to notice it at first, but moments later she swept his arm away and left the table, racing out of the Hall with her head down. The Weasley girl immediately jumped up to follow her, but Granger caught her arm and cloak, shook her head and pulled her back. She sat down again, and they resumed their breakfast in awkward silence.

Blaise sat in front of Draco and started asking about when the Potions test was. Draco shrugged, said he didn't care, and pocketed some of the sweets on the table for later. The conversation then drifted to the next Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. They wouldn't be a problem unless they replaced the entire team with competent players. And brooms. Blaise began complaining about school. Pansy joined them and began complaining about school too. Soon, the three were laughing about Rubeus Hagrid. Draco's owl finally arrived with the Prophet and more allowance from his family. Whatever that was in the news couldn't be _that_ bad. He sent his owl off, casually flipped the Prophet to page two and began reading.

* * *

Nyssa was up on the roof again. She had considered running to the lavatory but there would be too many people. If she chose the other lavatory, she'd then be plagued by Moaning Myrtle. She didn't need an insensitive ghost laughing at her.

That article in the Prophet. Its headline read: _Pioneer Head-Healer Commits Suicide_, and there was a picture of her father when he was still living. He was wearing that distant, mysteriously wise expression, which meant that the photo was taken at work. The article mentioned who her father was, and that he was found dead at home last night, with his wand near his hand. There were no signs of struggle, and a suicide note had been found on his desk. It was finalised as a suicide because officials performed a spell and found that the killing curse was the last spell used.

Nyssa felt hurt until her body was under pain. She punched the roof tiles as hard as she could, buried her head in her robes and let a fresh wave of tears out.

She couldn't deal with this. First her mother, and now her father. She knew they had to leave someday, but now?

_Grow up, Nyssa. Don't be a child. Somewhere in the world, someone has it worse than you._

She wouldn't cry in front of people; she'd do it in private, and she would cope like how she coped before during her mother's death. Frankly, it was far worse watching her mother grow weaker by the day than her actual death itself. She would still be able to function normally because she simply wasn't the sobbing type.

Why in the world would he take his own life? Why would he leave her, just like that?

Nyssa wanted to read the suicide note, but knew the Ministry would be retaining it as evidence and wouldn't release it until two weeks later, not even to family. It was a silly protocol. The case was already closed as suicide, so there wasn't a need to withhold the note as evidence. Closed cases in the Ministry were as good as forgotten cases because they were too busy looking for Voldemort. That protocol was there to make it seem like the Ministry was doing something, when they were doing nothing at all. The Ministry was a huge bloody joke.

She had no more family. No brothers, no sisters, no relatives and no parents. Her father's property and wealth was hers now, and she didn't need a guardian because she was of age.

_I can buy any broom in the world without worrying about its cost. _

The thought was sour. She didn't want a broom. She couldn't stop crying.

* * *

"Mr. Potter, where is Miss Aurelia? The school has been notified of her father's death and I need a prefect to find her. Professor Snape has informed me that she missed her Potions quiz this afternoon." McGonagall called over the noise outside the Transfigurations classroom. Students were streaming out of the room for their next period.

"I'm not a prefect, Professor. We haven't got a clue where she went, but I think she wants to be alo—"

"Mr. Malfoy! You're excused from Transfigurations this evening. Look for Miss Aurelia and see that she hasn't done anything silly. Tell her the Potions test will be rescheduled and that she is excused from her lessons for a week."

"What? But Potter can—"

"Potter does not have prefectorial obligations, unlike you, Mr. Malfoy."

"No, really, _I'll_ do it, Professor," Harry started.

"I will see you in my class, Mr. Potter, because you haven't been handing in the last two essays." McGonagall turned swiftly and entered the classroom.

Before Harry followed her, he turned to glare at Draco.

"If you _ever_ hurt her..."

"Not hearing you, Potty." Draco stalked off before Harry could say anything else. He already knew where he was going to start.

He went to the dungeons, grabbing somebody's sandwich along the way, and took his broom from his dormitory. He left through the first window he found and flew up to the rooftops.

She was on the same one opposite the Forbidden Forest. He landed smoothly on the sloping roof. She took one look at him, looked away and groaned into her sleeve, though he thought it was more of a cover to discreetly wipe tears off her face.

"Aurelia."

"Sod off."

"No. I—"

She jumped off the roof with her broom and flew towards the ground. He grumbled and followed her, highly annoyed. She dismounted her broom with the most elegance he had ever seen anyone dismount their brooms with and started walking.

He mentally berated himself for thinking such a thing and landed a few feet behind her near the Herbology glasshouse. "McGonagall wants to tell you you're excused from class till next week or something and that the Potions test will be rescheduled."

His broom scraped the pavement. She suddenly rounded on him and the light from the glasshouse reflected against her tear-stained, deranged eyes.

"_You do not drag the Nimbus!_" She shrieked.

"I didn't," Draco said, "hey, your hand is bleeding. You need the hospital wing."

"I _need_ to be alone."

Draco took her by the elbow and pulled her into the castle through the glasshouse, careful not to let her blood get on his tailor-made robes. He was brought up in respectable family; what was he supposed to do, leave her bleeding and unattended? What if she went back to the roof, with no food or drink, and fainted and bled out?

"You need Madam Pomfrey first."

"Let me go."

"No, you'll run off."

They walked in silence for awhile. He listened to her letting out involuntary sniffs. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible because it was clear she wasn't going to cry about her father in front of him. He wouldn't really know what to do if she did. They turned a corner and walked some more, passing one of the House ghosts. The silence got awkward. He walked faster. Here he was, holding the arm of a Gryffindor. A _Gryffindor_. Father would not be pleased. He needed to stop touching her. Where the hell were Crabbe and Goyle?

_Oh yes, Crabbe was resting in the dormitory because he chewed on his lips, thinking it was beef._

He didn't know where Goyle was. He caught a whiff of Nyssa's hair. Milk and honey. It was such a pleasant smell. He increased his pace again, dragging her along. They were almost running down corridors now. He needed to get rid of her before he did something stupid.

"Are you _smelling_ my _hair_?"

Draco cringed. Yes.

"_No_. Don't flatter yourself, Aurelia. The last _thing_ I want to smell is _you_," he retorted.

They reached the hospital wing. Draco brought her to the nearest empty bed and sat her down. He tossed the sandwich into her lap as Madam Pomfrey hurried over, then he turned sharply and left.


	6. Remember Me

It was Saturday afternoon in Hogsmeade. Nyssa was sitting in the back corner of the Three Broomsticks thinking about her father's death. She hadn't cried since two weeks ago when she read about it in the Prophet and was wondering how long more she'd last till her next major break down. That night in the girls' dormitory, Hermione and Ginny had made it clear that they were there for her, and so were Ron, and Harry, anytime if she needed to talk. She'd been so grateful and overwhelmed with emotion that she burst into a puddle of tears then and there. Nyssa looked out the window into the street. Some Third Years were pushing each other down the snow-covered road towards the Shrieking Shack, giggling nervously as they cast uneasy glances around. Just then, Ron's head popped into the other side of her window and she waved at him. His face broke into a wide grin and he waved back, making his way to the entrance of the inn along with Harry and Hermione.

"'Aight, what will it be? I'm buying," Harry said once they reached her table. He was slightly giddy from navigating Zonko's huge Joke Shop.

"Can you even walk without holding on to my arm, Harry? I'll have a Butterbeer!" Ron said.

"Firewhiskey."

"Apple cider, please!"

Harry left to get the drinks.

Most of the school had heard about her father's suicide by week's end. People either gave her sympathetic looks, or avoided looking at her entirely. Her friends still joked when she was around, which helped her a great deal. She needed the familiar laughs and the fun, and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans before bed, because the rest of what she felt was pain. She had finally filled the hole in her heart where her mother had left, but now her heart had another hole ripped into it that seemed like it would never fill again, no matter how much she kept filling it. That is why she needed to be with Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny more than ever, because she was afraid that if the hole wasn't being filled, it would get deeper, and bigger, until it swallowed her, and she was glad that they understood that too.

She had received his suicide note from the Ministry two days ago. It was a mere page long, saying that he couldn't live anymore, because of the loss of his wife in France, and when moving to England hadn't helped, he'd made his decision and he was sorry to the people who would be hurt. He said it was no one's fault but his. She didn't believe her father took his own life, especially right after he sent the ring to her in an envelope that only she could open, and mentioned that he planned to meet her. So no tears came that day because she refused to spare any. He must have been blackmailed, or worse still, killed. It was relatively easy for suicides to be staged. He was never a coward and he valued life as much as he taught Nyssa to value hers. It _must_ have something to do with the ring. She had no evidence yet, ergo her trip to Hogsmeade. She was going to floo to her home using the network in the Three Broomsticks to see if she could gain anything useful.

When Harry came back with the drinks, Nyssa took a few sips and stood up.

"Will you be okay? I wish we could come with you. It's just that you're on school leave and we aren't," Hermione said with a worried frown. If it wasn't against school rules to leave Hogsmeade, Nyssa knew she wouldn't have hesitated to follow her.

"Yeah. Besides, less people leaving would attract less attention from the inn, right?" Nyssa smiled reassuringly and made her way toward the fireplace.

If only she felt reassured. Her legs were shaking slightly at the thought of stepping into her home for the first time without her father's presence. She wondered what state it would be in. Would it look like a struggle? Or would everything be in place? Her father was not a messy person, but he didn't keep an organised desk either. She wondered what his office looked like at the moment of his death, and what he was doing that day. Did he have his usual coffee and toast breakfast at the nearby cafe? Did he remember to bring the papers that morning? She wondered about his work, and what reports he'd completed that were waiting to be published.

She took a handful of floo powder and stepped into the fireplace. She needed to see the house and couldn't wait till Christmas holidays to see it. Harry, Ron and Hermione were watching her quietly, while the rest of the inn remained warm and bustling.

"3 Stafford Wharf," she said, and vanished into a wall of emerald flames.

Nyssa stepped out of the fireplace and into her home. It was a two-floor house built next to a river, but the top floor had only one room, which had been turned into her father's workspace. Essentially, it was a single storey house with high ceilings and a climb-up office above the kitchen. The bathroom and bedrooms were on the other side of the house from where the kitchen was. The house legally belonged to her now, though it felt so foreign. The air seemed stale and a thin layer of dust had settled around the furniture. Her father's cleaning spells must have worn off when he died. Nyssa drew her wand and set them up again. She made her way into every room of the first storey, just to see where things were. Everything seemed to be in its usual place. No pots were left drying as her father seldom cooked, the bathroom seemed tidy and unremarkable, and her room was exactly as she had left it. Outside on the patio that overlooked the river, there was a simple round table and two chairs. Leaning against the stone brick wall was an old foldable deck chair, and from the ceiling hung a birdfeeder that was magically charmed to replenish itself. She decided against opening the patio doors because it was too cold outside.

Nyssa made her way across the house to her father's bedroom, inspected it, and sat on his bed. So far, nothing seemed suspicious. She huffed and got up to check the second floor when she saw a dark masculine figure with his back towards her in the office. Nyssa ducked behind the doorway and Disillusioned herself. The man was tall and built, moving around the workspace with speed and purpose. His face was towards her now and she stifled a gasp when she saw that it was concealed beneath a shiny mask. The Death Eater seemed to be looking for something as he opened every door on every cabinet and every desk drawer, and having no success, he seemed to be getting very impatient. After ten minutes, a snarl erupted from his throat and he kicked the wall in frustration. He paced around the room for awhile. Finally, he stood at the edge of the stairs, pulled his wand out and hurled a spell into the office. To Nyssa's surprise, a thick, heavy book fell from the ceiling and landed at the man's feet. The man picked it up, dusted its dark burgundy cover and made his way down the stairs. Nyssa shrank behind the door frame and hoped he wouldn't hear her heart pounding away in her chest. He stepped into the fireplace and flooed away.

* * *

Ronald Weasley had just downed half of Nyssa's Firewhiskey to Hermione's disapproval (and Harry's amusement) as the fireplace roared to life again. Nyssa appeared, face as white as a sheet, tore out of the Three Broomsticks and down the path. She wondered why she was running at all since the Death Eater hadn't even noticed her, and collapsed into the thick snow just past the post office. She felt her hands and legs get wet and cold in the snow. When her friends caught up, she was trying to drown herself with snow and she was pulled to her feet before anything serious happened. She did the best explaining she could. The Death Eater, the book, and then tears began travelling down her cheeks because her father's suicide was _probably_ no accident. She had hugged and hit Harry and screamed into his robes as he hugged her and rubbed her back until she finally ran out of tears and calmed down.

The days would get harder for her as the Ministry would reject her appeal to open a case for her father, because of insufficient tangible evidence and they were "short on resources". The book that was hidden so carefully by her father would also remain a mystery to her, and the hole in her heart slowly grew wider each day questions remained unanswered about who killed her father, and why, and how the book and ring were connected to the murder, if they were at all. Perhaps the hardest blow for her would be the war that was to break out in the coming year, between Voldemort and the magical world.

* * *

**A/N: I'm so sorry for all the depressing pain! The next chapter onwards will have a lot of Draco so don't worry! The real magic begins during the war. Do R&R, thanks!**


	7. Pathways

"_Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul which is always scratching itself until it bleeds_."

**Michel de Montaigne**

Draco watched Nyssa from the second floor bedroom of the house that stood directly opposite her residency, separated by a mere two-lane road. The terrace he was in had long been abandoned by its previous tenant, so it provided the perfect hideout. The grime that came with it only mildly disgusted him. The trouble he had gone through to remain unnoticed was well worth his master's orders. He'd been watching her from a distance for the past two months without her notice, and thinking a lot. She had changed so much since the war. He remembered her being happier, so unaware that a big war was coming; everyone was. He now saw a hardened rebel in the way of the Dark Lord.

Death Eaters had literally been dropped off at the Ministry's doorstep, a year into the war, and it had been tearing apart the foundations of the Dark Side. Every few months, Death Eaters would turn up magically bound and unconscious, leaning against the government building in the morning. None of them remembered who put them there. At first, the Death Eaters at Malfoy Manor were in a state of frenzy. They were afraid because they had _no_ idea who it was that was picking them apart. Their plans and names were compromised after Ministry questioning and they were forced to find another safe house. The Dark Lord was furious and demanded answers. No one could produce anything. Even those spying in the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix returned without reap. Nobody knew if it was one wizard, a group, or a twist of fate. Despite their doubled attacks, their numbers dwindled.

Then they had a breakthrough. A month ago, Lucius Malfoy witnessed a witch in an alley in Kensington using Legilimancy on a Death Eater, Grimwald, for information she would use to find other Death Eaters. She had amber eyes and medium brown hair. She was but a mere commoner; nothing sinister, or exceptionally magical. She wiped his memory and Apparated him side-along. The following morning, Grimwald was found on the front porch of the government building by the cleaning maid, bound and unconscious. Lucius had triumphantly called a meeting and showed the Dark Lord and his most trusted followers the memory through a pensieve. Strangely, Voldemort had shown a delightful interest in her _ring_. Minutes passed and Draco was handed his next assignment by the Dark Lord himself.

At home, Lucius had been enraged that his _son_ had been awarded the task, and not he. If not for him, they would have continued being picked off one by one until they were too small to operate, or until the Ministry gained enough confidence to be proactive.

"How _dare_ you question the Dark Lord's decisions?" Draco had challenged, causing Lucius to hurl a curse at him. They had a long duel in the drawing room, sending and repelling curses in all directions. Narcissa had wisely fled to one of the lower levels of the estate. It ended when Lucius was hit with a near-harmless stinging hex. Lucius snarled at him to leave the house, and that he would be denied entry from that day after. Not that Draco cared. He had his own resources. Lucius was only refusing to accept that he'd been bested by his son.

Draco could see Nyssa pacing around the living room, head down, right hand gripping her wand so tightly her knuckles were white, and left clutching a soft cover book although she wasn't really reading it. He knew she'd come back from a Muggle book sale earlier in the day lugging in what looked like thirty books. Other than that, her schedule was clockwork. She'd jog in the morning, return to the house, shower, leave the house, return by evening, fix dinner, read, and go to bed. Some nights she'd be on the roof moping around like a depressed teenager. Other nights, she'd go for long jogs and return in the early hours of the morning. And most nights, she'd fall asleep on the sofa after reading a book or staring at the living room wall. Draco suspected it had something to do with Death Eater activity because she was always frowning like there was an Arithmancy problem stuck on it. He would find out soon enough. Tonight, he was going to pay her a long-awaited visit. He was down to his second-last day to kill Nyssa and retrieve the ring.

Three years ago, Draco had been misguided into joining the Dark Side by his aunt and father. On the night of Dumbledore's murder, everything went by so quickly. He knew he wasn't in any position to fight back without being killed, so he followed the Death Eaters. And once you were in, you couldn't get out. The constraints of the war laced heavy. He had to kill whoever he was told to kill, or be killed. Surprisingly, he grew to be good at it. He always got the job done, and he had become one of the most valuable servants of the Dark Lord. At least, that's what Voldemort mentioned in a meeting one day: _Little Malfoy has grown to be one of my favourites._

The task had almost been pure serendipity; he had struggled for the first few months in confusion. Then he knew he needed to do something to get himself out of the system. He started asking his father more about the Dark Arts, and Lucius had been pleased to teach him everything he knew: Curses, counter-curses, and knowledge that was too rare and dark to be published in books. Bellatrix taught him even more. If that wasn't enough, he was granted full access to the Malfoy library, where he'd spend his nights pouring through books for anything sinister enough that could be of use in destroying Voldemort. The problem was simpler than it looked. The Dark Lord was the head of a weak snake; the Dark was nothing without their leader because most of them were being led by fear. Draco knew he needed to defect to the Light one day, but only when he was strong enough to hold his own, because he wasn't counting on being taken in by the Order after all the Unforgivable Curses he had used. When he was sent to kill Nyssa, he knew it was time to decide whether to stick to the side he was really on. It wasn't because he knew her from school. She had a bigger role in the war than she knew.

She was on the roof now. Tonight, she had a bottle of Firewhisky. The drinks varied. Last night, it was Butterbeer. Last week, she was mixing Muggle drinks. She kept no friends; she was smart. She feared she'd be found and punished, and she didn't want others to suffer in her stead. The last people she was with were Potter, Weasley and Granger, and they were good enough to defend themselves. Draco knew they were out somewhere searching for Horcruxes, and secretly wished them well. He was thankful Snape had taught him Occlumency in private. He'd begged him to, and Malfoys never begged. Draco needed to barricade his mind from the Dark Lord. If he sensed any hint of betrayal or doubt, Draco would be tortured, killed, and disposed of. It was the same for every other follower. He was treading on thin ice.

Nyssa had been staring a hole in the road between their houses for the past twenty minutes. She took a last gulp of Firewhisky, tossed the bottle into the air and waved her wand absently. It exploded into a million tiny shards. Draco retreated further into the room to avoid getting hit by the glass. Her head snapped up and she stared straight into his window. She must have sensed the movement. Draco managed to move himself behind the wall just before she sent a white spark of light streaming through the window. There was nothing for her to see; the room was dusty and sparsely furnished, as if someone decided to live another life and left everything unwanted alone and forgotten. The spark shimmered and slowly vanished. Draco stayed behind the wall until he heard her climb back into her room. It wasn't until three hours later that she was asleep and Draco watched from the chair in the darkest corner of her room. If he wanted to retract his decision to default to the Light, now was the best time to do it. She'd never have to see it coming. She wouldn't be afraid before the killing curse hit her.

He was running out of time. He needed a final decision. Could he really betray the Dark Lord and retain his life? He had a plan; one that would probably not work. Draco closed his eyes. He couldn't fail.

_Failure means death_. The last three words replayed in his head until Nyssa began tossing and turning from her nightmares.

Draco snuffed the thought out of his mind. He knew she was looking for answers to her father's death, and he had them.


	8. An Inevitable Meeting

Nyssa unlocked the front door and trudged into her home. The interior was remarkably unimpressive. A plain, faint pink cotton couch, sky blue armchairs, and an enchanted potted plant which never withered without water were the only pieces of furniture in the living room. She'd decided to move the television upstairs so she could watch it from bed when the nights got unbearably boring, and had even considered levitating her refrigerator into her bedroom. After all, there wasn't going to be friends or family who'd visit. As such, that blank white wall was cramped floor to ceiling with three year's worth of photographs, scribbles and newspaper cuttings of anything related to Death Eater activity and her father's death. It was Disillusioned, invisible to prying eyes who cared to look into the house. She currently had zero leads on current Death Eater meeting locations. Soon, she would have to go back into the Intelligence Agency of America to swipe more files home. Luckily, they meddled deeply in British affairs.

She checked that her protective wards were still up and hung her coat on a rack beside the doorframe. She reached the kitchen in nine steps, dropped the brown paper bag on the table and brought the fresh strawberries out. She pulled a knife out from the second drawer beside the sink, grabbed her favourite plastic chopping board from the dish wash rack and diced the strawberries. She preferred plastic chopping boards to wooden ones because they lasted longer and were easier to clean. Mrs. Potts's Cauldron Shoppe had plastic chopping boards in all the colours, shapes and sizes one could think of. She smiled a little at her embarrassing thriftiness as memories of sweeping Mrs. Potts's shelves clean on End of Year sales' Day washed into her head. She tossed the red fruit into the first yellow bowl she found. Colour made her forget the war. It made her happy, and colours that matched were a bonus. So were Muggle literature, coffee, and good movies, but the happiness ended there. She popped the bowl into the fridge for later and threw the rest of the groceries into the cabinets. She was already salivating, but was going to force herself to take a long hot shower first because they tasted nicer the longer you had to wait for them.

Her kitchen was less than half the size of the living room, with the fridge facing the entrance to the kitchen. Wooden cabinets ran from below the windows beside the fridge to the adjacent wall. The sink was built into the cabinets along that adjacent wall, and there was a small square birch table where she'd eat at, standing against the wall opposite the windows. The birch was well-worn and had darkened under the sunlight to a muddy maple when the last tenant left. Above the table hung a framed moving picture of Harry, Hermione, Ron and herself in the Hogwarts Great Hall, bewitched to look like a random seashore by anyone who looked into the kitchen from the window. The people in the frames looked impossibly ecstatic because they knew they were going to Hogsmeade that day, Harry under the Cloak. Clearly, her time at Hogwarts had been the best in her life. She dearly missed it, and almost smiled at the memories that came flooding through her head, but right now, forward was where she wanted to look.

Nyssa switched the Muggle radio on and stepped into the bathroom upstairs. Traffic updates were playing, followed by an old song by Snow Patrol. She knew all the lyrics and would have sung it in her head, if not for her terrible headache. It was a recurring side effect of a potion she downed for clarity of mind a few weeks ago when she took Grimwald down in Kensington.

It had been at least three years and three months since she'd last seen her friends. When Harry, Ron and Hermione left school to look for the Horcruxes, she told them she wasn't going with them and she didn't want to be contacted because it would be too dangerous to risk the Dark Side intercepting their methods of correspondence. They had parted, awkwardly and tearfully, and soon the war had engulfed their separate worlds. A few months ago, she'd picked up from the papers that Hermione currently worked at the Ministry in the Auror Department, and reckoned she was probably feeding Harry and Ron information on possible Horcrux locations on the sly. That meant they were having little luck looking for the Horcruxes themselves, despite Hermione's resourcefulness. And that meant the war was going to be ongoing for quite some time. Suddenly the strawberries in the fridge seemed tastier.

To all her other schoolmates, Nyssa had relocated to America to start a new life since America had refused to get involved with the European war against Voldemort. That was partly true because Nyssa worked as an informant for the Department of External Affairs in the Intelligence Agency of America. She lived and spent her free time in London. The other part of the truth was that Nyssa had chosen to fight the war another way. She wasn't exactly the valiant hero type like her three friends, and had simply decided to take another road. She reasoned that _her_way of thwarting the business of the Dark Side (delivering them to the Ministry for questioning under a hooded cloak) was far more effective because it really was a one-man job. Better still, no one knew about her living in England, and her name was unknown to Death Eaters, apart from one Draco Malfoy. From what she knew of him since Hogwarts, he was an elusive Earth-scum who left the Dark Mark in the sky everywhere. Regardless, she would be fine as long as she covered her tracks.

Nyssa refused to acknowledge an underlying reason for fighting the war in England, and that part was beginning to scare her. She couldn't put her father's death to rest. There was no closure, but she knew Death Eaters were in the equation somewhere. Ergo, if she went out of her house, she would either use Polyjuice potion or Disillusionment so she could keep unnoticed, but when she approached Death Eaters, she'd show them her real face because she wanted them to _see_ her. _She_ wanted to be the avenger. Soon after, of course, they'd be under the memory charm. It was risqué, and silly, but she was too stubborn to change. In fact, she wanted to do worse. She wanted to hurt them, to make them feel the unforgivable curse they'd selfishly used on the innocent on countless occasions. The only reason why she hadn't used the Cruciatus Curse yet was because it would turn her into the very element she was fighting against.

She wasn't sure if normal, entirely non-evil people would think of using Unforgivable Curses when placed in a position of war and family loss. She wasn't sure if she was slowly turning evil, or only just had the opportunity to discover that she was truly evil to begin with. Death Eaters were still human beings and she knew she still wanted to hurt them until it brought her father back to life, because she suspected so much that they had something to do with his death that mere speculation and reality had blended together. Even aware of this notion, she persisted in her hungry hunt of dark wizards. But evil intent or not, capturing Death Eaters just seemed like a legitimate way to pass time around here.

Emerging from the shower, she gulped some potion down from a blue vial the size of her palm. That would keep the headaches away for awhile. She opened the medicine cabinet and admired her tiny bottles of potions she had collected over the years. Even the richly coloured vials were one-of-a-kind, hand-blown by the nice craftsman who owned a shop two streets from Gringotts. He went by Professor Dalenregius as he was a retired Potions professor from Hewbridge School of Magic, and every time she stepped into his store, he would feed her stories of his past teaching life. It sounded like a wonderful place to school in, although it was much smaller than Hogwarts. She'd trade in her school stories too, and he'd particularly enjoy hearing about her horrible Potions master, Professor Severus Snape, or simply, _Snivellus_. She'd stay for hours at a time in his shop making converse with such a warm and wise educator as him. Her stomach growled audibly. She shut the cabinet door, turned the radio off with a swish of her wand and headed downstairs to fetch her strawberries.

Nyssa bounded into the kitchen and threw the fridge door open like she hadn't eaten in days, so hard that it bounced back and hit her arm. She stuck her head into the fridge, grabbed the yellow bowl of strawberries and shut the fridge door. She turned to go back upstairs but her eyes went wide because a tall, blonde-haired Death Eater was leaning against the kitchen sink and looking at her.

_Sexy... No! Bad mind! He's here to kill you. _

She drew her wand from the back pocket of her shorts.

"_Expelliarmus_," rasped the voice of her demise.

The wand flew out of Nyssa's hand and rolled under the kitchen cabinet. Having remembered the bowl of strawberries she had in her hand, she hurled the bowl with all her might at the Death Eater. Draco simply deflected it with a flick of his wrist and pointed his wand at her.

"Don't move," he growled at Nyssa, who was already backing away and grabbing at a bunch of fridge magnets for self-defense.

She glared at him, bile rising in her throat, "_Malfoy_."

He slowly rose to his full height and smirked as if he owned the air in her house, wand still trained on her. That handsome sod.

"I like your Serial Killer wall," Draco remarked brightly, motioning towards the living room. He was gaunt, unpredictable, and dangerous. His perfect hair was messed slightly, such that it was perfectly messy.

"Figures."

Something in his eyes changed, but his gaze quickly steeled again. His icy grey eyes pierced through her amber orbs, willing them to falter, but Nyssa remained steadfast. He saw her posture and muscles tense slightly.

He cast a silencing charm over the room.

"I'm not going to kill you."

Her fists tightened on the magnets. She remained silent, disbelieving.

"I have the information you seek. You must first come with me by Side-Along Apparition." He summoned her wand and tucked it in his jacket.

"Ha! Really? _Really_, Malfoy? After three years under Voldemort's bidding you think I'll just _stupidly_ let you apparate me to your shrimpy friends, don't you? By the way, they aren't as menacing as they claim to be without their wands. They're cowards; without magic, they're _nothing_! Of course, you must already know that, since they sent _you_ to fetch me. No, I will not come with you, and you may return my wand, so we can have a proper duel, because I am not going down without a fight."

"Nyssa, I'm trying to help you," Draco sighed and started forward. "I'm going to take you to a safe place."

He got too close. Nyssa lunged forward and slammed a fist into his side. He barely flinched and caught her wrist. He restrained her other hand before it collided with his face. She tried to knee and elbow him, and struggled for a long time under his unyielding hold until she was all tired out. She was sure she had spent at least fifteen minutes struggling and had pulled him halfway around the kitchen and back to where they started again. One chair had been knocked to the floor, and the table had shifted across the room to the sink. Fridge magnets lay scattered everywhere on the checkered tiles, and the strawberries had landed in the sink. Shards of ceramic from the yellow bowl birthed an irregular mosaic on the kitchen floor. She found herself helplessly twisted sideways against him. She felt his chest rising and falling while she mentally berated herself for having the strength of a toothpick and cursed his breathing for being so regular.

Nyssa resorted to the only thing left that she could do; she stared blankly down at his shoe. _Polished. Black_. And then she had a completely unrelated thought to his footwear.

"Stop that." He growled.

"Stop what?" She asked innocently.

He pinned her against the wall and glared at her with his icy orbs. Nyssa smiled coldly, rivaling his demeanor. She hoped the triumphant glint in her eyes ticked him off.

She could feel him blocking her with never-ending layers of obstruction. They were like walls of useless imagery. Front lawns, skies, Hogwarts corridors, book cases, people walking on the streets, no sign of Voldemort or Death Eaters or his family and relatives. She didn't expect him to have any real friends. It was as if scenes could be filed, and there were stacks and stacks of files to go through, where none of them were relevant. No matter, she implanted a massive headache elsewhere in his mind. Muggles had a specific term for it. Ruptured brain aneurysm, wasn't it?

"Ask nicely." She crooned sweetly. He didn't look like he was in pain, just vexed, but she was sure the pain was there. That meant she wasn't doing a good enough job. She made the aneurysm bigger.

"Last warning, Aurelia. It's rude." He was scowling deeply now, blinking more. He was probably starting to see double. Nyssa's grin grew wider.

"Oh? So _you_ break into _my_ house, disarm me, and _then_ expect me to be polite? Would you like some tea?" She sarcastically drawled the last sentence.

"I said I'm not going to kill you." He growled. For the benefit of theatrics, she imagined anger fumes resonating around his head.

"Hmm," Nyssa exaggerated a thinking expression,"and why don't I believe you?"

His patience wore thin. She felt the aneurysm extinguish as he completely repelled her from his mind. It was instantaneous, and felt like being yanked out of a room with the door slamming shut in her face.

"You're the one pinned to the wall at my mercy. Why do you think you aren't lying dead on the floor right now?"

"You mean to torture me before you kill me."

"And why aren't I doing that right now?"

"Because you keep talking!"

"_Merlin_, Aurelia!" He looked exasperated. "I don't have time to convince you here. Others will be looking for you so you're coming with me whether you like it or not."

She remained silent but didn't struggle. It was a cross between her not having a choice, perfervid curiosity, and an unexplainable desire to be with him. She already knew he wasn't going to kill her because he could have killed her so many times that night, and he hadn't. But the general survival rule was that when one saw a Death Eater, one had to either run or tough it out. She didn't really believe he was going to Apparate her to Voldemort, although it was highly possible. Somehow, his intentions seemed pure, and he wouldn't have wasted so much time putting up with her as she resisted her way around the kitchen, trying to bash him into every cabinet corner. She only wondered what he could possibly want with her that didn't involve her ultimate death. The ground was suddenly yanked from her feet as they Apparated.

* * *

**A/N**: A cookie if you review?


	9. Abracadabra

She felt him tighten his grip before releasing her as solid ground touched her feet. Realizing she had closed her eyes, she opened them again, and a grey house in the middle of a field of plain carpet grass came into view.

"Where are we?" She asked.

"There are a few places I own. This is one of them."

She looked around. She could see, about a hectare away, a forest surrounding the field in all directions. The two-storey house that stood in the middle of the grass field was bigger than hers, and it also had a small patio. Draco was leading her into the house by her arm. She hadn't realized she'd started shivering; she had only shorts and an old Beauxbatons Seeker shirt on, and was standing outside in the apparently chilly wind.

"Oh. What a disappointing holiday villa. Dull and tiny, is it not? I would have expected an oversized chateau in Versailles or Siciliy, or whatever it is the opulent Malfoy empire casts its obnoxiously extravagant eye on." She laughed scornfully, looking around. "No endless gardens? Pruned hedges? Not even the essential Belle Epoque architecture? How foreign it must be to live in this crummy shoe box, I wonder..."

Draco ignored her as he strode up the porch steps and into the house with her arm in his hand, so she feigned a coughing fit, "Cor blimey! Bit dusty, init?" She swatted at the imaginary dust. "Where do you keep the House Elves?"

He ignored her again, dragging her up the stairs into the first room on the right while she pretended to wheeze from the stale air and threw all her weight towards the floor. He yanked a cloak out from the closet and tossed it to her.

"Put that on," he said without looking at her as he left the room.

Nyssa shrugged the cloak on and hurried after him, wondering why he returned no insults. It wasn't like him at all. At least, from what she remembered of him in Hogwarts. He stopped abruptly past the doorway and turned. She came to a halt a few inches away from him, directly under the doorway. It was uncomfortably claustrophobic and his eyes were piercing into hers, so she took a step back.

"This is your room." He said, tone devoid of emotion. He turned and began descending the stairs, and she followed after, completely boggled.

The house was actually quite cozy. It had two rooms, a small sitting room area, and a bathroom on the second floor. If the first room was the guest room, then she presumed the other one at the end of the hallway to be his. They weren't tiny, but they weren't huge either. On the first floor, the library and stairs stood across the sitting room, and the kitchen and store room made up the rest of the house. There was no wallpaper; so far she had only seen either dark wood panels or stone. She was surprised by the modesty of his home. His furniture was simple; no gaudy statues of gryffons or panthers guarding the doorway, no bedazzling chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and no thousand-Galleon carpet from Bockes and Boots running across the floorboards. Even more unforeseen was the television that sat in the living room, which she stared at, mouth slightly ajar, while following the strange man. She reminded herself that he was still dangerous, having been involved in countless attacks on magical society for the past three years, and rumoured to be personally involved in the assassinations of key parliament figures. She weighed her few options. He had her wand, which was her livelihood, somewhere in his jacket. There were no neighbours for her to run wandlessly to for help. She could do some wandless magic, but then again he was a _seasoned killer_ with a _wand_. She was but a fly in the spider's web. He stopped again and faced her.

"Sit."

They were in the kitchen. There was only a kitchen table to sit at so she sat herself in one of the four chairs. She looked at the tall man before her. He was twenty, as was she. His hair had gotten even lighter, and borderlined on white. The angles of his face were sharper, and through the war, his cheeks had slightly hollowed. His muscles were defined enough for her to make out, even under two layers of clothing. It intimidated her, his strength. It wasn't what he did; it was what he hadn't done. Just minutes ago, she had exhausted herself trying to break from his vice grip. She reckoned he could kill her at any moment without a wand. She waited for his next move while he observed her intently.

"I was sent by Voldemort to kill you," he finally said.

Nyssa nodded.

"But I'm not going to."

"Yes, yes. I am well aware." She tried to sound rude and impatient, hoping it would mask her fear. She refused to show weakness.

"You've been sabotaging his activities, and he wants your ring."

She frowned, fiddling with the ring subconsciously. Draco pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. He could see her leaning away from him and she took her hands off the table.

"Why?"

"It contains valuable magic in it. Voldemort has been searching for it for years."

She blinked.

"Tell me everything you know about the Dissociation," he said.

"The one that happened a few billion years ago?"

"One thousand."

"Right. Um, it was when Muggles still knew about magical folk, but they were scared of what we could do to them, because of our unexplainable powers. So there were many deaths and wars between the two sides for centuries, but it was mostly them against us." She paused, listening to the clock tick in front of her. She still half-expected a hoard of Death Eaters to come bursting into the room anytime. "It was finally decided that there would be a mass Dissociation, where Muggles around the world would be Obliviated of all knowledge pertaining to our world, in order for both sides to coexist in peace. The Dissociation took about a century to complete, I believe. The only remnants of the magical world the Muggles have now are bedtime stories of wizards, goblins and leprechauns, and mythological stories of dragons and chimeras and the like. That's all I know."

"Glad to see your Wizard History is mostly in order," he smiled. "The Kings of England, Spain and France were the ones who had a number of significant meetings leading up to the Dissociation."

"Excellent History lesson, _Professor Malfoy_. What comes next? Potions?" If it wasn't for her tired and annoyed expression, he would have laughed.

"Do you know what this book is?" He asked as a thick burgundy book, which she immediately recognized to be the one she'd seen fall from the ceiling of her father's office three years ago, materialized on the table next to him.

"_Hey_! That's _mine_!" She snatched it off the table and held it to her chest, scowling at him. Then for a moment, she looked afraid, as if she actually thought he was going to put a curse on her. The look disappeared as quickly as it had come, but it was enough to unsettle something inside him.

She looked down at the book. It had no title. She looked at its spine; no publisher or author name. There were little post-it notes sticking out from three of its pages. She couldn't wait to open it and start reading.

"Yes, it is yours," Draco said. Then he frowned. "You've seen it before?" Something about the timeline didn't quite fit.

"In my father's house, yes."

He only looked back quizzically, so she continued, "I flooed home during a Hogsmeade trip and saw a Death Eater take it. I never even knew my father had it until it was stolen."

He nodded. "I took it from the library in the Manor. It was under Voldemort's possession."

"What a _lousy, wretched, buggering_ _thief_," she said under her breath. "Voldemort, not you. Hah." She quickly added, eyes darting to his, then away. He fought the urge to laugh again.

"This book attempts to document the meetings of the three Kings during the Dissociation process, and information about the key artifacts the ancient Kings possessed. At that time, no books of the sort existed yet, so the information from the book had been compiled from journal recounts and letters of those who lived during that era." He got up to brew tea. "Go ahead; read the pages I've marked out. Those are the essential pages. You can read the rest of the book in your own time."

_Finally_. She tore the book open, as fast as opening an ancient artifact would allow, which was quite slowly, really. It was neatly handwritten, but the handwriting changed throughout the chapters. She gingerly flipped its pages to the first post-it, and guessed the book had been magically preserved since none of the pages fell out or turned into dust at her touch. After all, it _had_ landed in one piece after being dropped from the ceiling. There were so many questions whizzing through her head at the same time, amongst which was how Draco even knew what a post-it was. Pushing her thoughts away, she focused on the words in the book:

_Excerpt from journal of maid servant of the Royal Household of England:_

_I have found it. What object could be more perfect than His Majesty's ring? It is one with three straight lines running across the finger and sits deep in his drawer at the bedside, one of many small and large items lying loose. His Majesty does not have use for it. It is not his most intricate possession, it is never worn, and it is forgotten as day turns into night, and night into day. His Majesty keeps numerous rings. What is one piece of hay in a stack? _

_Call me young, and foolish, but I cannot bear to see my family suffer any more under the hands of servitude! Ma is sick, and Pa, Jonah, Gabrianna and I cannot even afford paying our own loaves. It is either death now, or death later! Tonight, I will tell Pa of the ring. It is of Royal worth and will fetch us the money we utterly need. Merlin help our sakes._

Further down the page, it read:

_Excerpt of letter from servant of the Royal Household of England to unknown:_

_A ring bearing three horizontal parallel lines belongs to the King of England is found in his bedside drawer. Marianna, my second daughter and maid servant to the Queen, has seen it with her very eyes. No record of how it came to be is known to exist, but what is certain is that this object is of great magical value, and is spoken of only within the Royal family. The German soothsayer Karl Heinrich believes that the ring will not betray any power under the wrong circumstances. He believes it a herald of either good or evil, when three individuals, whose fates are tied are in dispute, stand as two. On that day, its power can be used by the one who wears it. He cannot see what this power is, but tells me its purpose can only be revealed through future prophecies. I trust this soothsayer with my life, as he has come to be my good friend, and is no false prophet. I can only implore you believe his word, as much as you trust my intent. This ring is very rare, my friend. It will worth a fine value._

She flipped to the next post-it marker:

_Excerpt of letter from Karl Heinrich to servant of the Royal Household of England:_

_My brother, I beseech you to let the ring be. It is neither yours to keep, nor is it yours to pass on. I had a strange dream last night. It was different from all the other dreams I have had, and somehow I know this to be a dream of some foreboding that is to come. It was inside a cave, and there were three main figures in the middle. There were others in the cave, but I believe the three figures to represent the three lines of the ring. One was tall, a dark and powerful practitioner, but he wasn't human. He had slits where a man's nostrils should be. The other was a young wizard; shorter, bearing a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and the last was a young witch, the shortest, who wore a ring – _this_ very ring. I still cannot see what power this ring contains, but I can see that this object has a destination, and therefore, to meddle with this ring without fully understanding it, Edric, you put yourself in danger. I believe this dream came to me so that I may warn you. If you must steal, steal something else. _

Nyssa took her eyes off the book to stare at a spot on the table, her mouth hanging open. Draco thought she was going to start drooling if she didn't close it soon. He peered over the table to see what page she was at. He patiently waited for her to say something. Thirty-three seconds ticked by. Thirty-seven… Forty…

"He dreamt about Harry," she told herself aloud.

"Voldemort too, I presume," Draco added, in case the information never registered in her head.

"But the witch… She couldn't be _me_, could she? _Could she?_ I mean, there obviously isn't enough detail."

"Read on," he simply said, and returned to his tea. He mentally steeled himself for the hard part that would come much later.

"And the ring I have doesn't necessarily have to be _that_ particular ring. They could just _look_ the same."

"Read on," Draco said again.

"You think an old soothsayer's dream is credible?"

"I will not repeat myself again, Aurelia." Draco said sternly.

She turned to the last post-it after shooting him a glare. This one was further away from the first two, but it was another extract from Marianna's journal:

_I now know why His Majesty's ring is never worn! It cannot be worn! Princess Arialle's marriage to the Prince of Wales was today. After the ceremony while dusting the Queen's closet, I witnessed in discretion His Majesty speaking with his daughter. He passed the ring to her, and she tried it on, except it wouldn't touch her finger. She tried again with all her fingers, but the magic in the ring refused her. No one outside of the Royal family has seen this magic before! He then told her the ring must be passed on to future generations until it finds its owner, the one who will be able to wear the ring. After all this time under the notion that the ring had monetary worth – it is worth so much more! I feel foolish now. Father was right all along._

She looked up at Draco again. She had to do it, even if the only person to test it on was someone she backed away from an hour ago. He could see her eyes fizzing with anticipation.

"Show me your hand," she ordered at the same time Draco extended it, palm down.

Not wanting to touch him, she removed the curious ring from her middle finger and positioned it in front of Draco's long finger. She pushed it inwards, but it wouldn't budge, as if there was an invisible wall between the ring and his finger. It was the same with every other finger, and every finger on his other hand, even after she took his hand and tried to force it in until he withdrew it sharply, checking his fingers for fractures. But it went through freely with all of her fingers.

Draco felt a weight lift off his shoulders. His plan could still work. "There's your evidence," he said, "unless there is another witch who knows Potter and who can wear the ring. Rather improbable, because of this –" he said as a huge stack of papers materialized on the table.

"What are those?" She asked, wondering what else on the table was Disillusioned.

"These are your ancestral birth records," he said. "You _are_ a descendant from the Royal family, and I assume the ring has been successfully passed down, since the ring seems to pave a way for its own fate. Edric considered stealing the ring, and Heinrich received a premonition that he perceived was a warning to leave the ring alone. I think the premonition was specifically given to Heinrich _because_ he was Edric's trusted friend, and thus had the power to influence his decision."

It was plausible, and she had remembered her father mentioning that the ring was family heirloom. "How did you get the records?"

"I simply bribed a bloke who works in the Ministry."

"Oh," she said blandly.

"And I have a theory," he said, "as to why _you_ are the one the ring picked."

"A theory," she repeated after a brief silence.

"Is Aurelia too tired to function tonight, or is she always this slow?" He drawled.

She shot him a venomous look. "Give me my wand so I can turn you into a ferret."

"Absolutely not, if that's what you plan on doing," he smirked, grey eyes shining with mirth. Then he continued, "according to the records, your father was the last of seven consecutive male Squibs to be born. This occurrence, you should know, is extremely rare. It has never happened before, not that I've ever heard or read of, and I read. A lot."

"You _do_?" She mocked.

He continued as if he didn't hear her. "So, while I do not know why seven generations in a row lost their magical power, I think because you were the first one to be born _with_ magic, you have the collected magical potential of all seven Squibs, and that makes you powerful enough to wield the magic that the ring possesses. It's just a wild guess, but if you combine this with the fact that you're in the same age group as Potter, and that seven is a powerful number in the wizarding world, _and_ that the ring seems to have a destiny, I think you were meant to have this ring."

Her head was reeling. He must have gone through a lot of time and effort to piece everything together. The information was swirling around in her mind, daring her to debunk the evidence. She was a Royal descendant. She'd been chosen by the ring for something significant, but she didn't know what. Draco's theory sounded crazy. If her father had a hypothesis, he would find a way to test it.

"How do you test a theory like that?" She asked.

"Find Potter, destroy the remaining Horcruxes, and then I'll take both of you to Voldemort," he responded automatically.

Nyssa's eyes widened. "The _gall_! That sends us straight to our deaths!"

"There is no way to really test the theory," Draco said with a slight shake of his head. "Heinrich saw the three of you together in his dream. That means you're supposed to meet in the flesh. Think, Aurelia. You can use the ring's power to destroy Voldemort, or at least help Potter to."

"And die in the process," she said. "Look, Malfoy, we don't even know _what_ the ring does, or whether it'll work at all."

He shrugged. They sat in the kitchen silently, once again listening to the ticking clock. He watched her consider his offer. He waited for her questions. His empty teacup sat on the table. Her cup that he'd poured for her out of etiquette remained untouched.

She finally spoke. "How did Voldemort find out about me?"

"My father saw what you did to Grimwald, completely by chance. Every Death Eater knows who you are now, and that you wear the ring. Voldemort knows about Heinreich's dream, and he wants the ring for its magic. He wants you dead because he's hoping the ring will choose someone else who's capable of wielding its power."

"So you expect me to stay in this house until we find Harry, the Horcruxes, and kill Voldemort?"

He nodded.

"This plan sounds like it came out of Luna Lovegood's mind."

"Well, do _you_ have a better one?"

"_Well_, you could always return my wand and let me _go_."

"You wouldn't last a week on your own. This house is on Unplottable land, in the middle of an Unplottable forest. No one will be able to find you unless they know exactly what they're looking for, which they don't. Do _you_ own Unplottable land?"

She crossed her arms and leant back in her seat. "I still want my wand back."

"Ask me tomorrow."

They sat silently again, staring across the table at each other. Then she dropped her gaze to the floor.

"Did he have my father killed?" A tiny voice spoke.

This was the part he was dreading. She'd break down in tears and he didn't want to see it because he wouldn't know what to do. "Yes," he said quietly.

He waited.

"_Why?_" She whispered.

"He didn't have the ring."

It was such a stupid reason to kill someone. She was overcome with anger and sadness, again. Every emotion that had brought her a tear three years ago came rushing back to her. But this time, she couldn't cry. Maybe she'd outgrown all that nonsense, or maybe there was something wrong with her tear ducts. She now felt oddly calm, and guessed it was because she'd finally hit the bottom and she had run out of feeling.

"Okay," she just said.

Draco blinked at her, confused. Of all the things she could say, she said that? He was expecting something loud, and angry. Fists slamming, a troubled frown, tears; Pansy would cry, and her wails wouldn't die down unless he cast a silencing charm around himself.

"If we're done, I'm going to bed." Not waiting for his reply, she took the burgundy book and birth records, and walked out of the kitchen. Draco heard the stairs creaking and a door close.

* * *

**A/N:** Please review to keep me writing!


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